November 28, 2007

Recently a trade magazine interviewed me and the questions they asked and my answers were excellent reminders of what sales people and managers need to practice to take their sales volume to the next level.

Question 2:

What key elements are often overlooked, forgotten or not practiced when it comes to selling?

Answer 2:

Getting to the profit center leaders after sales are made to learn what it will take to make this person see you the sales person as a valuable resource to himself and his company.

Becoming associated with the solution rather than the problem.You the sales person must connect with the profit center leader and his staff after the benefits of the sale have been felt.They must realize your efforts made those benefits happen.Otherwise, they think their subordinate was responsible or it was a simple task that any of your competitors could do.Most sales people only get to see the leaders when problems occur and a big sit down is mandated.If this is the only time you the sales person get to the executive suite for a full discussion, you’ll only be associated with problems.And who wants to do more business with those thought of as problems.

For more on this topic see my article on sales management - MANAGE DIFFERENTLY FOR MORE SALES, BETTER SALES & FASTER SALES - 2 Suggestions

November 26, 2007

Recently a trade magazine interviewed me and the questions they asked and my answers were excellent reminders of what sales people and managers need to practice to take their sales volume to the next level.I will share these with you over the next four blogs.

Question 1:

What is the most important advice I can give for a sales person to increase sales?

Answer 1:

Exploit your existing customers.They are the easiest prospects to get more business from. Most sales people do not spend enough time building relationships with the powerful people of existing customers to learn what issues they are facing, as it relates to the solutions they can provide.A sales person’s time utilization should be 50% spent on existing customers, 30% on old and lost customers and 20% looking for new customers.

Get to the profit center leaders and the immediate staff of your customers to build professional relationships.These are the people that will make final decisions and influence follow-on sales.The sales person that sticks with the subordinate-in-charge or the delegate is leaving the selling of the real decision maker up to that subordinate.This is real risky.You may not get to these leaders and staff on the first sale, but there is no reason you can’t after the sale is made.

November 12, 2007

The easiest way to cross sell is to use your high level relationships. The magic pill for building a network of high level relationships is to admit to yourself that you have to get to these leaders and begin relationship selling.If you do, then you’ll start focusing and focus will get your creativity churning to find entry points to the profit center leaders and their direct reports.

The trick to getting to the top is to relationship sell your main contact and then use that good working relationship to network you to the leaders.Most people get tight with their main contact, but never use that relationship to springboard them to the next level.What a waste of a good relationship.